The retired businessman picking at a late lunch of pastourma and avgolemeno soup at the Cypriot community centre in north London on Monday afternoon would not give his name, his age or any hint as to what he used to do for a living.

What he would reveal, however, was that he has well over €100,000 deposited with Laiki Bank in Cyprus – and that he was still too angry to risk a confrontation with his bank manager.

"I don't want to speak to him because if I do I worry about what's going to come out of my mouth," he said.

He had intended to spend the money, which he inherited from his father, on helping his two sisters and three sons. Instead, it looks as though a large chunk of it will be forfeited to help Cyprus cling on to the euro.

"It will ruin my life," he said. "I'm so angry and so depressed."

The fact that he had always had reservations about the single currency and had finally been proved right was scant consolation.

"I did not agree with Cyprus joining the euro," he said. "That was the biggest mistake. I knew that this kind of thing could happen."

Up the road at the Finchley branch of Laiki Bank, customers were broadly confident that their UK deposits would remain untouched by the crisis.

Andreas Christoforou, a businessman who has banked with Laiki for almost half a century, was happy to accept its assurances.

"I have an account here as well as my savings and some business accounts and my kids have their bank accounts here," he said. "At the moment I am worried but I've trusted this bank for the last 45 years and I'm sure they will find something to help their customers."

His faith was echoed by the delivery driver sitting with his mate in the cab of a lorry outside the branch.

"We've got a few accounts here and we came to get reassurance," he said. "And I do feel reassured – but then I don't have over €100,000 in the bank."

While he had resisted the temptation to withdraw his money as he didn't want to be a scaremonger, he did have a plan B.

"If it goes tits up, we'll have to get the money from Cyprus," he said.

His more cynical colleague couldn't decide who deserved the most blame: the banks or the EU.

"Banks are thieves but they are legal thieves," he mused. "But it's Europe bullying Cyprus because Cyprus is a small country."

George, a 73-year-old British citizen who came to the UK at the age of six, had less hesitation in pointing the finger. Who was to blame for the island's economic meltdown?

"England, America and fucking Germany," he said. "I blame America – that's where all the trouble started. And the Europeans want to do their own clique."

Although the bank had told him his money was safe, George wasn't convinced. "Nobody knows," he said. "All of this is a political thing."

Peter Yianni, the business centre manager at the branch, was keen to stress that British accounts were in no danger.

"We've obviously had busier times for the last week," he said, with elegant understatement. "But it's business as normal."

Back at the community centre, where men of a certain age sat playing cards and drinking coffee, Ali was feeling less optimistic.

The 65-year-old Turkish Cypriot, who had returned to the UK from the island on Sunday, had seen the panic there first-hand.

"Everybody is hoping for something to happen but they don't know what," he said. "They are trying to decide whether to buy shoes for their children or to spend the money on food and drink."

Unless that something – whatever it might be – happened soon, Ali added, he foresaw strike after strike after strike.

"Everyone is in the middle," he said. "They don't want to go into the sea because they might drown, but they don't want to go into the forest because it's burning."